View movie

View thumbnails
Run time: 13:58

Stream (help)

64Kb Real Media (dialup)
256Kb Real Media (broadband)

Play / Download (help)

(60 MB)512Kb MPEG4
(60 MB)Ogg Video
(62 MB)64Kb Real Media
(146 MB)256Kb Real Media
(254 MB)HiRes MPEG4
(360 MB)MPEG2

Resources

Film OriginalsAirport America (1954)

Advocates increased airport construction, especially in rural America. Describes the centrality of general aviation to the U.S. economy. With many images of American townscapes, especially in rural areas; small-town airports; and businesspeople using small airplanes to expedite their activities. Tech Director: Chet Moulton. Narrator: Marx Hartman. Recording: Cinesound.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Producer: Film Originals
Sponsor: National Association of State Aviation Officials
Audio/Visual: Sd, C
Keywords: Aviation: General; Aviation: Airports; Rural America

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Individual Files

Write a review
Downloaded 5,032 timesReviews
Average Rating:

Reviewer: Major Chode - - August 19, 2008
Subject: Airport America
I'm not exactly sure what point Christine is trying to make, but I can't say I agree with it. What I found most interesting about this movie is practically everything mentioned is just as true today as it was back then. Airports are still maintained in small communities all over the US (yes even in the lower 48) and most are still prospering and growing. Salesmen still use them and they are heavily used by agriculture and other types of businesses. A good number of them are still maintained by municipalities or county governments because it makes good sense for them to do so. And regardless of what aversions people have towards agricultural aerial application, it DOES benefit everyone indirectly on a scale most can't even imagine. The US wouldn't be the world's breadbasket without it.

Reviewer: Christine Hennig - - June 5, 2003
Subject: Airport America
This 50s film tries to sell the idea that all small towns need airports. It predicts a future where darn near everybody in every town flies all over the place. Except in remote areas where there is little ground transportation, such as Alaska, it was not to be. But they sure tried hard to make it so in this film, which gives it some mild camp value, as well as some historical value. There are some mstable moments, too, such as the overly literal beginning, where the narrator importantly intones, Cars. Buses. Churches," over a scene of cars, buses and churches; or the section on planes spraying insectisides all over the countryside, where the narrator says, This has indirect effects on us all," which is true, but not in the way he thinks. And the soundtrack music is some of the most bombastic I've heard in awhile. It all adds up to a moderately entertaining film, not great but not bad either.
Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Reviewer: Spuzz - - December 17, 2002
Subject: What is this film about?
Somewhat misleading film about the use of airports. For some inexplicable reason, I was gearing up about what purposes airport serves, But it the film goes all over the map, starting with a history lesson about the car, then the highway and then the airplane. The narration briefly talks about airports, then seems to wander off again.

Shotlist

Advocates increased airport construction, especially in rural America. Describes the centrality of general aviation to the U.S. economy.

Many aerials of American townscapes, farms throughout
Steam train
Couple cranking and driving old cranked automobile (supposed to be 1903)
Rutted road
Crowded LA freeway Ð many cars in one direction, few in another
The ÒStackÓ near downtown LA
Old barnstorming pilot; well-dressed couple gets out of old biplane
Passengers at North Platte airport
VS crowds at airport
Passengers greeting plane
Skeletons of new terminal buildings under construction
VS aerials and street-level shots of small American towns (good)
Aerial small-town airport
Old yellow-cab station wagon pulling in at small-town airport
VS small-town airports
Sign: Vicksburg Airport, Vicksburg, Miss.
VS small private planes at small airports
Man whitewashing lines on stones to form control boundary at small airport
Aerials of rural airports
Construction and survey crews at small airports (VS)
VS harvestable crops (wheat sheaves)
VS wheat harvesting with 2 combines and trucks
Man painting cropduster Ð sign ÒSouth Carolina Aerial Surveying Service Inc.Ó
VS man starting engine on biplane
VS biplane cropdusting
CU pilot with goggles looking into and onside of camera which is placed in cockpit of cropduster (good obsessive image showing cropdusting)
Farmer paying check to pilot
Airplane lands in field to deliver spare part to harvesting combine
(music same as Goodbye Mr. Roach hatching sequence)
VS harvesting and maintenance
VS burned tree trunks and timber post forest fire
Forest Service plane taking off at airstrip
VS Smokejumpers parachuting out of plane (seen from plane window looking back)
Air-to-air shot looking down on insect-spraying plane, spraying insecticide from both sings
Logger felling tree (Douglas fir?)
VS logging; trees breaking and falling
Logging truck with logs pulling away with sunset in background
Cart pulling gleaming plane out of hangar
VS runways from above
Le Tourneau marked on airplane rudder
Union Oil Company on airplane rudder
Businessmen leaving terminal building
Firestone HQ
Kraft Foods Company HQ
Men in white shirts and ties entering Raytheon corporate plane
Businessmen walking into ÒIdaho National BankÓ
Aerial of open pit mining
Shot of smokestacks (good)
Workers leaving factory
VS heavy industry
CU oil well counterweight rotating
Oil well at sunset (good)
Man puts suitcase into luggage compartment of small plane marked ÒFitzpatrick Drilling CompanyÓ
Two men unloading stretcher from red air ambulance
Another cropdusting shot
Airplane taxiing thru wheat field
Family getting into small plane
Couple with rifles getting into red plane (sportsmen)
Passengers leaving small plane marked Provincetown-Boston Airline
Small plane taxiing by hangar marked ÒAircraft DivisionÓ
Aerial (low) of small town
Narrator: ÒThe air is the greatest freeway man will ever know. It doesnÕt have to be built or maintained. It touches every city and town.Ó